#234 2014 · Honda / Dentsu / Rhizomatiks · Automotive / advertisingreframe
Honda turned 25-year-old telemetry data nobody had ever looked at into the ad that finally made people care about its navigation app
the problem
A dry, technical product feature (driving-data analytics) has no emotional story to sell it on its own
background
Honda wanted to promote Internavi, its connected driving-data and navigation platform, but 'we analyze your driving data in real time' is an abstract, hard-to-feel pitch — every navigation app claimed some version of data-driven intelligence, and none of that language made a driver feel anything. Honda had one asset almost no other car company could match: an archive of onboard telemetry data, including accelerator position, engine speed and vehicle speed, recorded from Formula 1 cars going back decades, sitting unused as a historical record rather than a marketing asset.
In 1989, Ayrton Senna set the fastest qualifying lap in Japanese Grand Prix history at Suzuka Circuit in a McLaren-Honda MP4/5, a lap 1.7 seconds faster than his own teammate's — a legendary moment for Formula 1 fans, but one that existed only as a historical fact and a time on a stopwatch, with no way for anyone born after to actually experience what that lap felt or sounded like.
the move
Honda, Dentsu and Rhizomatiks pulled Senna's 25-year-old onboard telemetry data and used it to drive a light-and-sound recreation of the entire lap at the actual Suzuka circuit: thousands of LED lights placed along the track lit up in the exact sequence and timing the telemetry data recorded, while the original McLaren-Honda MP4/5 engine sound — recaptured by mounting a recorder on a properly maintained MP4/5 — played in sync, letting spectators experience Senna's exact fastest lap, second by second, a quarter-century after it happened.
the payoff
The resulting short film has drawn over 3.5 million YouTube views, and the campaign won the Titanium Grand Prix — Cannes Lions' top overall award, given to work the jury considers redefines the category — along with 14 further awards across 8 categories out of more than 37,000 entries at Cannes Lions 2014, plus a D&AD Black Pencil, one of the hardest awards in the industry to win.
what came after
'Sound of Honda' is cited in advertising and data-storytelling circles as a reference case for turning raw sensor or performance data into an emotionally resonant experience rather than an abstract feature pitch, and remains one of the highest-decorated single campaigns in Cannes Lions history.
references
- [1]Honda's "Sound of Honda / Ayrton Senna 1989" Wins a Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Festival of CreativityHonda Global Corporate Website, 2014global.honda
- [2]"Sound of Honda/Ayrton Senna 1989" wins Cannes Festival awardsRacer, 2014racer.com